My search for a final resting place.
By Susan Fishman Orlins
“What time are we going to Pleasant Valley?” I asked Emily.
“Mom, I already told you we leave for the tour at 10:30. I also told you it’s called Serenity Ridge.”
“Oh right—I like that better,” I said, waiting a beat to add a quip. “Does it have a subtitle, like ‘Where rolling hills meet the sky’?”
I wasn’t entirely sure how I’d agreed to tour a “natural burial cemetery” on this otherwise ordinary morning, but presumably I’d walked into the commitment by disclosing my curiosity about green burial to my three daughters. Truth be told, I’d never been all that fixated on finding the perfect “forever home.” In an ideal world, I’d donate my body to a medical school. That seems like the more sociable way to go. It may sound wacky, but the idea of becoming a cadaver plays into the joy I’ve always gotten from being around others. So why not medical students? I wouldn’t be able to feel their scalpels. In my fantasy, I’d throw in a free copy of my self-published memoir, Confessions of a Worrywart. (Not for nothing was I voted friendliest girl in ninth grade.)
Alas, donating your body to medical science turns out to require filling out a frightful heap of forms—and nothing’s guaranteed. Meanwhile, neglecting to make my own arrangements could expose me to an option I like even less: being turned into ashes and cast in the ocean. Heaven forbid, so to speak.
My forebears knew where they would end up: right beside those who went before them. It was a given, something you were always aware of, the same way I always knew I was the middle child—well, at least I knew that once my brother was born. My father talked about the family plot well before his casket was hermetically sealed. My mother didn’t care at all. “Dust to dust,” she would say.
Long ago, when my Medicare years seemed impossibly far off, a cousin expressed interest in my plot, and I readily forfeited it. Like my mother I didn’t put much faith in the hereafter. Maybe that’s why I relinquished my reservation. Though it is also true that the plot required a regular maintenance fee.
So there I was, plotless, with my daughters nagging me to plan for my remaining years and thereafter. Emily, my youngest, took the lead and made the appointment at Serenity Ridge.
Green burial had a certain ring. I didn’t mind picturing my body nestled in a fairy-tale pasture for my final rest. Some friends didn’t want to hear about it; others said it made them sad. But I’ve always been the kind of traveler who cares a good bit about where I’ll be sleeping. Even when I’m out all day, I nurse a comforting image of my bedtime quarters. And a natural, nontoxic burial promised to eventually nurture the earth, too.
There was just one problem. I wasn’t opposed to being wrapped in a soil-enriching “mushroom shroud,” but when a Google search returned an image of a corpse wrapped in white cloth from head to toe, my heart began to palpitate. I know it makes no sense, but I tend toward claustrophobia. Would it be possible to ensure a bit of air around my face?
That, among other things, was what Emily and I aimed to find out. She and I were an end-of-life team. She’d been the one who rode the overnight medical bus with me to take my mom from Florida to a nursing home in Philly. On the bus, Mom regaled us with memories of going around the corner to pick out live chickens for family dinners. And of my grandmom giving coal to less fortunate neighbors.
As the appointed hour of our tour approached, I felt increasingly curious and squeamish in equal measure about coming face to face with this candidate for my final destination.
When we parked, a butterfly greeted us. Then, as if programmed, a flock of birds flew over Serenity’s meadows, swooping this way and that. The whole vibe was that of a tune I had already requested for my memorial, “Mockin’ Bird Hill.” Tra-la-la, tweedlee dee dee it gives me a thrill / To wake up in the mornin’ to the mockin’ bird’s trill.
Joe Freed, a slender retired teacher, performed the tour flawlessly. He discussed biodegradable shrouds as well as biodegradable urns and caskets. (No metal allowed, though they would accept my hip replacements.) Joe pointed yonder to the Jewish section, where Howard Berg, who founded and owns Serenity Ridge, plans to have his final rest. Non-Jews who are part of Jewish families are also welcome there; otherwise the property is non-denominational. That led me to consider whether I want to be among mostly Jewish bodies—and then quickly to wonder why I would choose segregation in Mr. Berg’s neighborhood when, after leaving my parents’ Jewish bubble, I have spent six decades mingling with the other 98 percent of the American population.
Joe led us uphill with our four tour-mates to a pricey section called Inspiration Point, a small meadow ringed by trees. But I preferred the lower-level area, which was so open that it truly felt like the meadows met the sky. With its narrow road winding over hill and dale, the expansive green grass and open blue sky conjured a scene from a children’s picture book. In other words, a place I would be pleased to spend eternity.
Emily and I both really liked the married couple on the tour and agreed they would be nice neighbors for me.
Another elder asked if Serenity offered biodegradable caskets in the shape of those you see standing up against saloons in old western movies. She added that she was divorced and didn’t want her ex’s name on her stone. So she planned to label her plot using a number.
I said I’d like my stone to say Granny Sooze, the moniker I most identify with.
“Can I take a toy from each grandchild—or each great-grandchild, in the optimistic case?” I asked.
“Yes, as long as it’s biodegradable.”
“How about a biodegradable urn with my dog’s ashes?” I asked.
“Perhaps,” Joe replied, “but you didn’t hear that from me.”
When I told Emily I wanted to reserve 11 spots just in case my children and grandies want to join me, she raised the question of John, her sister’s boyfriend.
“Well,” I said, “if he turns out to not be a keeper, he could be a placeholder for a different dweller to go alongside Eliza.”
Right then the thought occurred to me: will my ex and I quarrel about who gets the kids?
Don’t get me wrong, I assured my daughters they should feel under no pressure to join me at Serenity Ridge. Even though I forsook a spot in my ancestors’ cemetery, I have always thought it a sweet idea to rest ever after beside, or—as I hear is a trend—under or over loved ones, be they in urns or otherwise. But the only person I can really decide for is myself. And aside from being more, well, serene than where my parents lie, Serenity Ridge occupies 177 acres of rolling hills rather than amid the tumult of a densely populated neighborhood in Philadelphia.
At the end, Joe handed us cards, advising if I had any further questions I could call 1-240-NATURAL.
But I was already sold. Sociable company, a stellar view, and I could even arrange a means to keep the claustrophobia at bay. The more I thought about it, the better it seemed. Indeed, I got so into the idea of Serenity Ridge that later, at home, I had a passing fancy that the food would be good.
Susan Fishman Orlins CW’67 is a journalist and author of Confessions of a Worrywart: Husbands, Mothers, Lovers, and Others. Currently she is debating how much of her remaining time to devote to downsizing before her final rest at Serenity Ridge.
